GULF SHORES – With surprises, and subsequent costs associated with them, now believed to have been handled, Saunders Yachtworks is asking for some upgrades on the boat basin being built on the Intracoastal Waterway.

Gulf Shores is building the basin with grant money and Saunders has agreed to a long-term lease to operate a boat yard on the property which is just south of Jack Edwards Airport.

The City Council OK’d about $270,000 in change orders for the project on Dec. 5. Now the Economic Development Authority, the agency which supplied an 80 percent federally funded grant for the project, must OK the changes. Saunders paid the 20 percent matching money required to secure the grant and the city provided the land.

The changes are pending “assuming the EDA approves all the change orders we submitted which, we’ve been led to believe they will,” Saunders President John Fitzgerald said.

Gulf Shores Public Works Director Mark Acreman said the money for the change orders will come from unused money from the original grant.

“The project has, I won’t call it a surplus, but we have almost $350,000 that we are currently under budget for the total allotted dollar amount the EDA approved us for,” Acreman said. “So even with these additional change orders that total about $280,000 we still have about $70,000 that has yet to be allocated to any portion of this project. We still have money left over in the project.”

Mayor Robert Craft asked if the at some point the leftover $70,000 was spent and more was needed, who would be responsible for paying that?

“That would be Saunders’ responsibility,” Acreman said. “That’s already been discussed with them.”

Acreman also said that he and Saunders’ representatives waited until this point in the project to consider any change orders so if any additional problems cropped up, funds would be available.

“We addressed the unforeseen conditions first and then once we felt comfortable that the majority of the earthwork had been completed and the site work package, which to me is the greatest risk of unforeseen conditions,” Acreman said. “Now that that’s pretty much behind us I feel comfortable entertaining some of these renter requested change orders to use up the entire amount of the EDA grant.”

Fitzgerald said the earthwork in the area of the boat lift was improved to avoid potential problems. A patch of organic material was found underground, likely from past construction projects along the canal and possibly from the 1930s when the canal was first dug.

“One of the change orders was for further excavation below the base of the yard,” Fitzgerald said. “When they dug the canal it was all a swamp, excavated swamp dumped on top of swamp and then put sand on top of that. That’s the old-fashioned way to do it.

“There’s a significant layer of organic material in the sand that had been holding some pockets of water.”

Fitzgerald said the material, mostly stumps and branches buried in the basin, were not a major concern, but the change orders offered a chance to make it even better.

“It’s just eliminating potential problems in the future,” he said. “Ultimately, we felt good about the stability, but it was a chance to improve it. We wanted to get all that debris out of there. Where you run that lift, you don’t want any surprises in the sub soil 10 years from now.”

The improvement to the underlying earthworks was about $30,000 of the change order requests.

The largest item on the list was for $101,000 to cement the bottom of the south portion of the basin instead of having gravel.

“Primarily from a safety standpoint and also from dust reduction we felt like that portion would be better as concrete,” Saunders said.

The next most costly item was about $56,000 for engineering costs associated with the changes.

“The engineering change order is addition inspections, additional design fees required to address the subsequent construction, unforeseen conditions and/or upgrades,” Acreman said.

Other changes include $53,000 in electrical upgrades, $22,000 for the boat lift to accommodate addition weight and $6,000 to make some water and sewer connections stainless steel to “make them more durable and long lasting,” Acreman said.

A $2,000 change was needed to upgrade the labor cost.